But Bosnians, who fled the Balkan conflict and arrived with educations and building skills, bought hundreds of the run-down houses in East Utica, which had been predominately Italian. By the 1990s, arson had destroyed many homes. Utica’s population which stood at 100,000 in 1960, plunged. But like in other manufacturing towns across the country, plants started downsizing, and eventually closed. Utica had been home to companies like General Electric that provided thousands of jobs. Paw and her family are part of a remarkable migration to Utica, helping to turn around a once-fading manufacturing town. And for many, it’s a place to begin healing from the trauma of war and persecution. A place to celebrate traditions with family - and embrace new ones. It’s a place to try and figure out an unfamiliar world - and make choices. She’s applying for jobs as a medical assistant and studying for an insurance certification exam so she can one day sell life insurance.įor refugees building new lives in America, home is safety, comfort - everything. “In the camp there was no electricity,” she said her older sister, Nu Win, accidentally started a fire when studying by candlelight. “It’s a sign their kids will live a better life than in the camp.” Paw said about her parents who still speak only Karen.
“It makes them proud when they look at the diplomas,” Ms. Yet she graduated in the top 10 of her high school class and later earned a college degree. Paw was 15, extremely shy and able to speak only Karen, the language of the Karen ethnic group in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. When the family arrived in Utica from the refugee camp in 2009, Ms. Another friend who is a contractor helped him renovate it. Friends and a brother-in-law helped him put together a cash payment a friend guided him through the paperwork. Dee, 52, bought the down-at-the-heels house from the city in 2013 for $16,650. Her father, Priki Dee, works the night shift at a local factory and wakes at about 10 a.m. Her mother, Ma Cha Pi, had been up for hours. “I don’t pray, but my mom does.” The family had a similar altar in the bamboo hut in the Thai refugee camp, where they lived for 15 years. “Sometimes I do it, sometimes my mom,” Ms. Then she rang a bell, sat on the floor and bowed. At 8 on a recent morning, Pri Paw brought small bowls - of rice and fried salmon with bamboo shoots - to the Buddhist altar in her family’s living room in Utica, N.Y.
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